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POPP^ANUM 

The 

Autobiography 

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THE HAWTHORNE PRESS 

HAWTHORNE, N. V. 


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POPP^ANUM 


The 

Autobiography of a Ghost 


By POPP/^A SABINA 

V V - 5 , : : 


THE HAWTHORNE PRESS 
HAWTHORNE, N. Y. 


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LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

MAY 9 1904 

Copyrififht Entry 
• 4" - ' (7 ‘r 

CLASS a- XXc. No. 

8 4/ 4 > t) 

COPY B 



Copyright, 1904. 

BY THE HAWTHORNE PRESS. 
All rights reserved. 




PREFACE AND DEDICATION. 


Before I became a Ghost I invented a Cosmetic which 
was highly popular among the Roman Ladies: it was 
called Poppaeanum. 

This Poppaeanum of to-day is not an Ointment, but is a 
Potion to be administered by Women to Men, and I dedi- 
cate it to the Women of America. 


Popp^A Sabina. 



CONTENTS. 


Chapter i. — My identity. A general view of my life and 
the conditions under which I write. 

Chapter 2. — Masked London Ladies. Unmasked Ro- 
man Ladies. Upturned thumbs. 

Chapter 3. — My Father. His death. My birth. Birth 
of Otho. Birth of Nero. My Mother. My Childhood. 
Caligula. Death of Tiberius. Death of Caligula. 
Claudius. Messalina. My marriage. My first husband. 
My son. Childhood of Nero. 

Chapter 4. — Augustus and his daughter Julia. Excuses 
for Tiberius. Vipsania Agrippina. The second Agrip- 
pina, mother of Caligula. The third Agrippina, mother 
of Nero and sister to Caligula. 

Chapter 5. — Dominion of Agrippina over Claudius. His 
adoption of her son : gives him his daughter Octavia to 
wife. Otho selected as companion to Nero. Nero’s good 
behaviour. 

Chapter 6. — Death of Claudius. Nero ascends throne. 
Recal of Seneca. Banishment and death of my husband. 
I marry Otho. Nero’s quarrels with his mother. He 
kills Britannicus. He kills his mother. Her last words. 


Nero makes known his intent to raise me to the throne. 
Otho’s banishment. My determination. 

Chapter 7. — Divorce of Octavia. I am made Empress. 
Death of Octavia. Boadicea burns London. 

Chapter 8. — Rome burns. Persecution of Christians. 
Piso’s conspiracy. Execution of Seneca, Lucan and 
others. Nero murders me. My sham funeral. Nero 
marries Stabilia Messalina. Otho becomes Nero’s bit- 
terest enemy. Galba’s conspiracy. 

Chapter 9. — Death of Nero. Epaphroditus. Epictetus. 
Galba ascends throne. Death of Galba. Otho ascends 
throne. Death of Otho. Otho’s nobility of Character. 
My luxurious habits. Our popularity. My one Crime, 
that I omitted to slay Nero. 

Chapter 10. — My joys. My sorrows. My hatred. My 
fury. Nero’s plot to ruin me. My death. My burial. 
My ignominy. 

Chapter ii. — My wanderings after death on Earth and 
Seas. I become a Seal. Centuries of ocean life. Many 
natural deaths. Murdered at last by Man. Terrestrial, 
aquatic and amphibious Mammalia. 

Chapter 12. — Ghost life, why unintelligible to senses. I 
walk the earth again. I do some mischief. Obstacles to 
mischief. Mopotony of it without a body of one’s own. 
I sicken of Hate and long for Love. I decide to become 
the Pet Dog of a man. 

Chapter 13. — My birth as a Dog. I secure a suitable 
master. My Baptism. 


6 


Chapter 14. — My happy life as a Dog. I cross the Chan- 
nel. My Master leaves me. I commit suicide. Again a 
Ghost, I seek and find my Master. He revisits his native 
land. My Collar. My Master’s Oath. My pride and 
glory in it. 

Chapter 15. — Man, the greatest power for Good or Evil 
in Nature. My progress as a soul by the help of Man. 
Perfectionists. The hopes of the class to which I belong. 
I speak for Seals and Dogs. Souls whose sympathies 
extend no further than Mankind. Souls whose sym- 
pathies embrace the whole Mammalian class, their ma- 
jestic power. 

Chapter 16. — A newspaper paragraph about Whales. 
Shame on such talk ! 

Chapter 17. — A general view of Mammalia. Names of 
those most familiar to man. 

Chapter 18. — All teat-suckers are brothers and sisters 
to Mankind. All must be taught the law of Not to Kill 
each other. This law to be taught by Ghosts, but Men 
must learn it first. 

Chapter 19. — The voice of a Seal. Sea teat-suckers, the 
Lords and Rulers of the Ocean. The names of these 
animals. Their determination to kill men who attempt 
to kill them. Warning to Whale hunters and Seal 
hunters. Let Men beware of our violence. 

Chapter 20. — The Were Wolf. The voice of a dead 
Dog. Coming events. 


7 



CHAPTER I. 


I am a Ghost. To put it more plainly and more cor- 
rectly, I am the disembodied soul of a Dog; although I 
once occupied the body of a Roman lady who, for three 
years, reigned as a Queen. 

I have therefore helped to make history and, in return 
for my help, history has made me out to have been a very 
wicked woman. 

Be that as it may, I intend to write my own history and 
I shall begin at the beginning ; which will be to give some 
account of that part of my life with which history has 
been able to play its usual pranks. 

I need not say that I refer to my career in the body 
of a woman. I probably existed as a developing soul 
before that time, but I have no memory of any previous 
existence. 

To satisfy my readers that this story of mine is not 
to be a work of fiction, I must explain briefly the con- 
ditions under which I am now writing. 

After my murder as a flesh and blood woman, I wan- 
dered about the earth for a long time as a “disembodied 
soul’'; and then, as souls often do, I took to the Sea. 
There, after a time, I learned to avail myself of a privi- 
lege which Nature accords to souls in the same plight as 

9 


I was; and I became a subhuman soul animating the 
body of a seal. 

In the bodies of seals I lived many natural lives and 
died many natural deaths, until I was again murdered 
by a man; which again sent me wandering as a disem- 
bodied soul about the earth. 

This gave me another privilege under Nature’s benign 
laws, so I entered the body of a dog and was fortunate 
enough to secure the strong affection of the man who 
was my master. 

After a time I died and I have remained a disembodied 
soul ever since, only I have now the power, which many 
others also enjoy, of associating myself with the souls of 
men or women of a kindred nature to myself. 

In consequence of this widely operating law of Nature, 
we disembodied souls are able to have a stronger in- 
fluence in human affairs than most embodied men and 
women who call their souls their own. 

Indeed, the usual effect of our influence, if we hap- 
pen to help them to power or celebrity, is to make them 
think that our souls are their oivn also, of which they 
often become proud and conceited. They are, however, 
always ready, when we incite them to crime or folly, as 
we often do, to declare that they have been tempted by 
evil spirits, possessed by devils, or otherwise obsessed. 
Obsession for good or for useful purposes rarely occurs 
to them as a possible state of things. 

In the matter of writing, our influence is more ap- 
parent than in any other, except perhaps some acts of 


10 


oratory or public speaking. When men like Shakespeare 
or Dumas throw off sheet after sheet, all ready for the 
printer, '‘without ever blotting out a line,” we disem- 
bodied souls may be seen at work. 

I do not profess to be of a calibre to seize and direct 
the pen of a Shakespeare or a Dumas, but I am quite ca- 
pable of directing the pen of the man who is now acting 
as my scribe, because I am not the first ghost for whom 
he has intelligently held the pen, and he will not, there- 
fore, interlard my thoughts by notions of his own. 


CHAPTER 2. 

I can never forget my native tongue ; but, since I ceased 
to speak it, I have had to learn that universal language 
in which all human souls must converse after nationality 
comes to an end. It is a master key to all other languages, 
so I shall not create astonishment by the declaration that, 
during the last forty years of my life, I have become 
acquainted with English. I often read the newspapers. 
Greatly was my fancy tickled yesterday by a paragraph 
which I now quote from a London paper. 

'‘The other night at the opera — a royal night — I took 
a careful survey of the brilliant and beautiful company of 
women, so7ne of them the loveliest women in the world 
in pomt of feature and figure. From a box, without 
glasses, they looked like goddesses. But take the glasses, 
or better still, get near enough to speak to them, and look 

11 


— and look in vain — for that tender grace of expression, 
that joy, intelligence, brilliance, charm, which the French 
call ^the beauty which is greater than beauty.' From all 
but a very few faces it is practically gone. There sat 
rows and rows of women, graced in every possible way 
with physical charms, whose actual faces are grim masks 
set with eager, hard, metallic, restless eyes:’ 

If the writer of that passage had ever seen women 
with their masks off — on a royal night — as I have seen 
them, he might have wished them on again. Our Roman 
women would have thrown him to the Lions for such 
talk as that about our lack of Beauty. 

Back flew my thoughts to the great amphitheatre of 
my native City. Again I sat on the purple cushioned 
benches, with unmasked beauty crowded around me. 
Again saw I the gladiators proudly marching past the 
throne: again I heard their ''Moriturus vos Saluto!" 
Again I saw — alas ! I never could behold it without bitter 
tears and shuddering — again, at end of almost every act, 
I saw that sight of thrilling horror ; beseeching arms up- 
held, and many downturned thumbs of men, but many 
women gazing on me, waiting for my verdict. 

And then mine pointed upwards; mine never pointed 
downwards : because I loved my people and they all loved 
me. 

•I* 

This will not do! I must put on my mask and set 
about my story. 


12 


CHAPTER 3. 


My father’s name was Titus Ollius. He was strangled 
with Sejanus in the year 31 of the Christian era. The 
crime of Sejanus was, that he aspired to the throne. 

Tiberius had been Emperor for seventeen years, but, 
being an old man, the management of affairs had for a 
long time been left to his favourite Sejanus, assisted by 
a council of twenty senators, sixteen of whom fell with 
him, and crowds of supposed accomplices who were put 
to death without even the pretence of a trial. 

In the same year, on the 26th of April, I, Poppsea 
Sabina, was born, and on the 28th of the same month, 
in the same year, was born my playmate, afterwards my 
true and faithful lover, Marcus Salvius Otho, a de- 
scendant from the Kings of Etruria; his grandfather a 
senator of the Equestrian order, and his father an officer 
of high and honourable trust under Tiberius. 

My mother, who was also called Poppaea, was the most 
beautiful woman of the Court of Tiberius, and afterwards 
of that of Claudius, he who succeeded to the throne after 
the short but detestable reign of Caligula. 

We were children, Otho and I, of six years of age, 
when the event occurred which made our after life a trag- 
edy: the birth of the tyrant Nero, in the year 37. It 
came as the climax to a time when Rome had sunk to the 
lowest possible depths of licentiousness, crime, and pleas- 
ures too unnatural and horrible to mention. In that year 
Tiberius fell into a lethargy, Caligula, then 25 years of 

13 


age, was proclaimed Emperor, Tiberius recovered, and 
Macro, to ensure Caligula’s life and welfare, was com- 
pelled to have the old man suffocated, or, as some say, 
poisoned, in the 78th year of his age and the 226. of his 
reign. 

Macro was a favourite of Tiberius. He, it was, who 
destroyed Sejanus, and raised himself on the ruins. He 
stopped at nothing to conciliate Caligula, even giving up 
to him his own wife Ennia; but Caligula had not been 
twelve months on the throne before he put an end to 
Macro and to Ennia also. 

On ascending the throne Caligula took his uncle, 
Claudius Nero, nephew of Tiberius, into the Consulship 
as his colleague. Claudius was then 47 years of age. 

In the year 41 Caligula was murdered by the people, 
at the age of 29, after a reign of nearly four years and a 
career of vices so horrible and unnatural that he would 
have been unsurpassed, if Nero had not been permitted 
a longer time during which to pollute the earth. 

Caligula was stabbed with thirty wounds. A centurion 
stabbed his wife and the brains of her infant daughter 
were dashed out against a wall. 

For the first time in our history the soldiers disposed 
of the crown ; and Claudius was proclaimed Emperor by 
the troops. He was a poor, weak wretch, ^'the unfinished 
sketch of a man/' at that time fifty years of age, and en- 
tirely governed by his wife, Messalina, and the freed men 
of her palace, until she was murdered by Narcissus, 
one of her many paramours, after presiding over the 

14 


Roman Court for nine years. This was in the year of 
Christ 46. 

Let us quote what history says about this queen. I 
will not strain my memory by an effort to remember hor- 
rors in which I was not compelled to share : a wise wo- 
man’s memory is like a dial which only records her hours 
of sunshine : I shall come to them, by and by, with glee 
and gladness, or most unthankful would be my present 
task, and most heartrending. 

Well ! To History, which, alas ! is sometimes true. 

“Valeria Messalina, daughter of Messala Barbutus, 
wife of Claudius, and Empress of Rome, has been unsur- 
passed in any age in licentiousness. She had all the males 
belonging to the household of the Emperor for her lovers ; 
officers, soldiers, slaves, players, nothing was too low for 
her. Not satisfied with her own shame, she even com- 
pelled the most noble Roman ladies to commit, in her 
presence, similar excesses. Whosoever did not comply 
with her wishes she punished with death.” 

In this abandoned Court my fond and lovely mother was 
the only protector I had, for I was now fifteen years of 
age, and Nature promised that I soon should be the most 
beautiful of all the Roman ladies. 

It is evident, that to marry me, out of the way, was 
the only chance for my safety, although the very thought 
of it gave Otho and myself much uneasiness and made us 
both unhappy ; for he had now grown from a playmate to 
IS 


a lover, and I, too, loved him dearly ; for he was, indeed, 
a brave and noble lad. 

Thus was I married off, out of all danger, into the 
obscurity of the home of a knight called Rufius Crispinus, 
an officer of the Praetorian Guard's, by whom I had one 
son, Ruffinus. 

Nero, at this time, was a promising boy of nine years 
of age, whose education was entrusted to the philosopher 
Seneca, and whose chief companion was allowed to be 
my darling Otho: for Nero’s mother was a shrewd and 
clever woman who knew how much depended upon his 
exemplary conduct, before she placed him on the throne, 
as she fully meant to do. 


CHAPTER 4. 

All the troubles that befell Rome after the death of 
Augustus might, perhaps, have been avoided if that mon- 
arch had been blessed with a son ; or even if he had been 
wise enough to let his only daughter Julia go to the devil 
after her own fashion; instead of using all his power, 
might and influence to settle her on a throne. 

Augustus died, in the year of Christ 14, a graceful 
death, proof of a graceful life, at eighty years of age, and 
after reigning five and forty years. *'Have I played my^ 
part wellf* demanded he, of those around his bed. Suf- 
ficient answer were their tears. '‘Then farewell and 
give me your applause'’ {valete, et plaudite), said he, as 
16 


the players say when the curtain drops. Thus droi)ped 
the curtain of death over the brightest period of Rome’s 
history, the great Augustan age. 

I apologise to none for purifying my pages by repeat- 
ing these well-known “last words.” 

Darkness had thus fallen on our land when Tiberius 
was proclaimed Emperor ; a morose and miserable man of 
55, already wrecked, body and soul, by sensuality. 

Yet, in Tiberius there were once the makings of a noble 
ruler, and he might have had a noble son to succeed him 
on the throne. At the age of thirty his life was coloured 
by the roses of a wise and happy marriage. His adored 
wife, Vipsania Agrippina, was daughter of Marcus 
Agrippa, the most intimate friend of Augustus, and of 
Marcella, the Emperor’s favourite niece. With more than 
very great reluctance (it was the tearing of the heart out 
of the man), he put away this glorious and virtuous wife 
to marry Julia, because the wish of Augustus was law. 

Julia had already been married to Marcellus, but when 
Marcellus died Marcus Agrippa, in obedience to Au- 
gustus, divorced Marcella to marry Julia: and when he 
also died, Tiberius, in his turn, had to divorce Vipsania 
and become the third husband of the Emperor’s daughter. 
After this event, her lusts and infamy so disgusted 
Tiberius that he retired from court and then Augustus 
banished Julia. 

Poor Vipsania was subsequently married to Asinius 
Callus, but he was, by Tiberius, condemned to perpetual 
imprisonment, so that he might not enjoy his prize. Julia 

17 


was the mother and Agrippa the father of the second 
Agrippina, who became the wife of Germanicus. Virtu- 
ous and heroic, she took the field with her husband, fol- 
lowing him through every one of his campaigns. Bold 
as a lioness, at last she came to Rome and denounced 
Tiberius for compassing her husband’s death. Tiberius 
banished her to the island of Pandataria, where, stoically 
refusing food, she shortly after died. 

Is it possible to believe that this brave and noble pair 
were parents of Caligula, born among the legions? Yet 
so it was. Of them came, too, born on the battlefield, that 
third Agrippina, mother of Nero and sister to Caligula. 

Thus doth the war spirit, foul fiend of bloodshed, recoil 
upon itself. 

The third Agrippina, with whom I had so much to do, 
was born in the principal town of the Ubii, now called 
Cologne, which she afterwards made a Roman Colony, 
calling it after herself, “Colonia Agrippinensis.” She was 
a woman of talent, ability, political experience, and re- 
markable beauty. She wrote several memoirs upon which 
Tacitus drew for historical material. 

At fourteen years of age Tiberius gave her in mar- 
riage to Domitius v^^nobarbus, of which union came Nero. 
After the death of Domitius, her brother Caligula ban- 
ished her; but, when Claudius came to the throne, she 
was recalled from exile and married to Crispus Passienus. 
History asserts that she became a widow again by assas- 
sinating her husband, so that she might concentrate her 
efforts on gaining the affections of her uncle, Claudius. 

i8 


CHAPTER 5. 


After the death of Messatina, Claudius had been under 
the thumb of his niece for four years when, with the ap- 
proval of the senate, who were under her influence, he 
married her in the year 50 A. D. This was his fifth mar- 
riage. 

History states that the control of the beautiful Agrip- 
pina over her aged husband was unbounded, and that her 
first object was to secure to her own son those expecta- 
tions to which Britannicus, son of Claudius by Messalina, 
was more equitably entitled. 

Claudius therefore adopted her son, Lucius Domitius, 
now 13 years old, gave him the name of Nero, and mar- 
ried him to his daughter, Octavia. 

At this time we were building the town of London, 
in our new Colony of Britain. I myself witnessed the 
entry of the Conquered Chief, Caractacus, in chains. 

We were now nineteen years of age, Otho and I, but 
I was already a wife and a mother. 

Otho was the chosen and constant companion of Nero, 
a studious lad who, afterwards, at the age of sixteen, had 
made such progress in Greek that he brilliantly pleaded 
in that tongue the cause of the rights and privileges of 
the Rhodeans and the people of Ilium. 


19 


CHAPTER 6. 


In the year 54 Agrippina poisoned Claudius and placed 
Nero on the throne, at the age of 18. Thus died Claudius 
at the age of 64, after a reign of 14 years, during which 
he was the puppet of unscrupulous women. 

Agrippina at once recalled Seneca from exile to look 
after Nero, intending to conduct the affairs of the nation 
herself. 

On coming to the throne Nero gave himself up to sen- 
suality and cruelty. His character had certainly slum- 
bered till then ; whether hypnotised by Agrippina or not, 
I cannot tell. It would not be fair to blame her for his 
conduct, because he had fallen under the influence of a 
freed- woman named Acte, having sickened of his wife 
Octavia. Seneca and Bhurrus for a time managed to 
restrain him a little, but he soon shook off their yoke and 
had it all his own way. 

History says that Otho seduced me from my husband 
and carried me off by force. Great Jupiter! How his- 
tory lies! 

Otho certainly married me, and with Imperial sanction, 
but my husband had been banished by Agrippina for his 
attachment to Britannicus and Octavius, the sons of Mes- 
salina, and put himself to death. (It is a wonder history 
blames me not for this\) Like a bird, I flew on the first 
opportunity to the arms of my natural lord. 

Nero, no doubt, viewed me as, at any time, his own 
certain prey, because I was well known to be the most 


20 


beautiful woman in Rome ; but he left us at peace while 
he shuffled his cards. 

History declares that Nero, abandoning his wife, Oc- 
tavia, cohabited with me, the wife of his favourite Otho. 
/ aing the lie in History's teeth! 

He abandoned Octavia for the freed-woman, Acte, and 
abandoned Acte for Agrippina herself, by which means 
she, for a time, partially recovered her influence, but his 
displacement of Pallas, her principal favourite, and per- 
haps the waning of her power over him, led her, in re- 
venge, to play her last card, which was to pronounce him 
an usurper and Britannicus the real heir. Then Nero 
showed his fangs. He poisoned Britannicus at a public 
banquet and never left off his persecution of his mother 
until he had done her to death. 

Her last words, well worthy of her noble mother, were, 
as she offered herself to the swords of her assassins: 
*'Ventrem teri!" '‘Strike me in the womb, which brought 
forth the monster With all these quarrels and crimes, 
I, Poppaea Sabina, had nothing whatever to do. 

Some time before the death of Agrippina, Nero made 
known to Otho his Imperial intentions with regard to 
myself, which were that Octavia should be divorced and 
that I should be elevated to the purple. Nero demanded 
of Otho, as a matter of course, an acquiescence similar to 
that accorded by Tiberius to the wishes of Augustus in 
regard to his beloved Vipsania. The alleged barrenness 
of Octavia was the excuse which Nero proposed to offer 
to the senate for this new arrangement. An honourable 


21 


banishment and permission to marry any other lady he 
might select, was offered to Otho in exchange for his 
sacrifice. 

The choice, in short, that was offered to us, was either 
that I should be made a Queen, or death in each other^ s 
arms. There was no middle course. 

Otho, with love unparalleled, persistently persuaded 
me to accept this situation. He preferred to see his dar- 
ling on a throne than to see her murdered at his side: 
For death, as far as he himself was concerned, he was not 
the sort of man to care. The certainty that Otho would 
be assassinated if we did not agree to Nero’s terms went 
far to influence my own decision, for at that time I had 
no desire for a throne, throned as I was in the heart of 
my husband. Thus it fell out that Otho accepted his 
banishment to Lusitania, of which country he was ap- 
pointed ruler or Governor. 

We had had about three years of real happiness, and, 
until the death of Agrippina I had little difficulty in 
avoiding Nero’s lust: afterwards, until he married me, 
I certainly had some trouble in holding my own ; but after 
I lost Otho I formally did determine to have the price that 
Nero promised, or to die. It is evident that if I had con- 
sented to become the Concubine of the Emperor he would 
never have made me his Queen. 

History declares that Agrippina, enraged at my ''con- 
nection” with her son, became my enemy. This may be 
disproved by one simple fact. I lived. Had she been my 
"enraged enemy” she would soon have put an end to me. 


22 


History also states that I retaliated the enmity of 
Agrippina by persuading her son to kill her, and that the 
gentle Nero “yielded to the request” But I am sick of 
contradicting history ! I simply sat and waited through 
it all; hard and silent as a stone woman, I knew that, 
sooner or later, if I could save my neck, I should be made 
a Queen. 


CHAPTER 7. 

So sat I waiting, stony-hearted, for the one remaining 
object of my life; to enjoy the love and adoration of a 
people, having been robbed of the company of the one 
man who was all the world to me. Little use was it to 
Nero to pay his court to me and seek my smiles : he knew 
full well I had my dagger always ready, either for him 
or for me, in case he came too near: and Nero was a 
coward, a very chicken-hearted creature. 

Soon did he learn from me, and unmistakably, that he 
must perform the bond he made with banished Otho, or 
die, or let me die, I cared not which. 

And so it came about that Octavia was divorced and I 
was made the Queen of Rome. This took place in the 
year 62. It was no hardship for Octavia ; it was a happy 
release. That Nero afterwards put her to death was 
further happiness for her. 

About this time the news came that Boadicea, Queen 
of the Iceni, had attacked our settlements in Britain, 
burned our new town of London to the ground, and put 
23 


70,000 of our people to the sword ; but that our general, 
Suetonius, had succeeded in defeating her: although, to 
rob the Romans of a triumph, she had taken her own life 
and that of her warlike daughters: — thus I was spared 
that pitiful exhibition, women in chains, walking behind 
a soldier’s car. 

I was now 3 1 years of age, in the zenith of my beauty, 
of which, as history truly states, I took most scrupulous 
and peculiar care. Nero was only 26, but already broken 
down by eight years of unbridled excesses of every sort 
of vice. 

I think Otho was pleased to hear in his far-off exile 
that I was, at last, a Queen. If I had thought it would 
have made him more unhappy I would have died rather 
than accept the crown. 


CHAPTER 8. 

In the year 64 came the great fire at Rome and the 
persecution of the Christians. 

Then came the year 65 ; the year of Piso’s conspiracy 
and the consequent execution of Seneca, his nephew 
Lucan, and many others. 

In that year I was kicked to death, at the age of 34. 

I will master my hatred, for the time, to tell, briefly and 
calmly, that my murderer made a great show about my 
funeral, building statues and monuments to me, and all 
sorts of things to delude the people, who, had they known 
24 


the real truth about the manner of my death, what he 
killed me for, and how he killed me — above all, how and 
in what manner he really buried my remains ; — he would 
have been surely torn to pieces, limb from limb, and well 
the coward knew it. All this I shall record as soon as I 
have done with dates and history. 

After my death Nero had a third wife, Statilia Mes- 
salina, a clever, worthy woman, against whose character 
history has not a word to say, neither have I. After 
Nero’s behaviour to me, Otho became his bitterest, dead- 
liest enemy, and assisted in the conspiracy to put Galba 
on the throne. 


CHAPTER 9. 

The year of Christ 68 was blessed by the death of 
Nero at the hands of his faithful f reed-man and secre- 
tary Epaphroditus, the same man who, afterwards, 
twisted the leg of his slave Epictitus until he broke it, 
evolving the memorable speech : — ^7 told you you would 
break it” 

This man Epaphroditus stuck to Nero after every other 
friend had fled, and stabbed him because he was too 
cowardly to do the deed himself, which would save him 
from ignominious tortures. Thus fell Nero, at the age of 
thirty-two. 

Then was Galba, an old man of 72, proclaimed Em- 
peror and, after seven months’ reign, put to death. 

Then came Otho’s turn to be a King; his ninety-five 

25 


days’ reign, and his manly death on the 20th of April, 
anno 69, by falling on his own sword rather than invol;e 
his nation in further bloodshed. 

My chronology and contemporary biography ends 
here. I lost all interest in the earth when Otho died. 
History does not say that I was with him when he died, 
and for those three years before he died, hut it is none the 
less a fact. 

History has admitted the nobility of the last acts of 
Otho’s life; that they were such as might have been 
prompted by a virtuous and benevolent heart ; but maligns 
him more than ever it did me by denouncing him as ''a 
man who zuas the associate of Nero^s shameful pleasures, 
and who stained his hand in the blood of his master” 

Again I fling the lie in history’s teeth ! 

I am a woman, and, as a woman, proudly say that 
Otho was pure; the flower of our nobility; one of the 
few ; an unpolluted youth in Rome. I say that it was my 
beauty and my innocence that kept him pure. I say tnat 
Otho worshipped me, and I say that it was the love of 
woman, and the love of woman only, that could have kept 
a man pure through such a filthy time. 

I have been blamed for my luxurious habits, for bath- 
ing in the milk of asses, for making Poppaeanum from 
their milk to keep my body beautiful. Well ! Let them 
blame me for such acts as these, I am not ashamed of 
them ; I never bathed in blood, although it flowed freely 
26 


enough in Rome for any woman to bathe in who might 
have had a fancy for such baths. 

Otho was rich and made me rich, too, without the help 
of Nero; he was very wealthy. He and all the Roman 
people worshipped me, and loved my beauty. The Ro- 
man people would have gladly filled my daily bath with 
asses' milk if Otho had been poor. 

If seeking to preserve my beauty was a crime; if lov- 
ing to display it to my people was a crime; if slowly 
pacing through the streets of Rome in my chariot drawn 
by milk-white mules was a crime, then am I, certainly, 
a very wicked woman, for I would, and very willingly, 
commit those crimes again. 

This I know well : — so popular was I ; so popular was 
Otho, that, had he conceived the happy thought to drive 
his dagger into Nero’s heart, the Roman people would 
have put him on the throne. 

I was most criminal in one thing only, and I admit 
it now with deep regret. 

After Otho was safe from the tyrant’s hand (my sole 
reason for letting him be banished) ; after my real peace 
and happiness was over ; after there was nothing left for 
me but to gratify the pride of a proud “professional 
beauty,” I should have yielded and become a courtesan 
until the first convenient opportunity of stabbing Nero 
to the heart. A hairpin would have done it, in his sleep. 

I should have saved my country several years of hor- 
ror too terrible to think about. What matter if his crea- 
tures killed me afterwards for such a deed? 

27 


Rome would not have been burned to ashes; Chris- 
tians would not have been thrown to lions, or burned as 
torches, all in rows, in Nero’s new-built gardens. Peter 
and Paul would both have died a natural death. 

The means of preventing all this lay on my toilet table, 
if I had only known. 

If I had only known the further woes in store for 
Rome, that very day my Otho went away, I would have 
done it. 

My name might, perhaps, have been linked with that of 
Jael or Judith, but such a history would have made me 
proud. 

Shades of Sisera and Holophernes ! Ye disembodied 
souls of honourable warriors ! Rebuke me not ! I do not 
link YOUR names with that of Nero^* 


CHAPTER 10. 

Dearly do I cherish the memory of those old days when 
Rome played in the sunshine of my beauty: those days 
when the whole city full of the men of Rome delighted 
in the sight of me and felt the force of the glory of a 
kind woman’s smile. 

That was the plan of my life. I lived to let men see 
my beauty. That was my glory and my glee. Every 
man, but one, who saw my beauty had joy and help and 
comfort of it. Mine was the beauty of a woman too deli- 
cate for Earth, yet was I very strong and vigorous, as a 
woman always must be, if she is really beautiful, 

28 


The men of Rome, when they saw me ; when I smiled 
upon them, one at a time, for I always tried to catch the 
eye of every man, would say : — ''There is our PoppceaT* 
' — "There is our darling!” and their hearts warmed to 
me, and they loved me with the love of a mountain for 
an ocean. I was an image of beauty in their hearts and 
it was a glow of loving glory in my own to know that in 
my image were the women children of Rome begotten. 

I was, at that time, a Mother to Rome ; a very Mother 
of mothers; for the thought of me, and my loveliness, 
rested in the hearts of the men and their women con- 
ceived in my image. 

There was, over me, a Dove hovering. It was the 
Dove of the help to bring Rome back to the perfection of 
complete manhood. 

This story is a pain to me : these memories are a pain : 
but I have determined that I will write them, for the help 
of men, or they should be buried in oblivion. 

4 * 

That man who married me first was a poor creature 
who had little regard for my beauty : he had no love for 
beauty. He was one of those boulder stones that rolls and 
rolls and gathers no moss of woman’s love. 

Otho held me in holy reverence. He loved and wor- 
shipped me. Complete Man was he ! 

Then came Nero, who had a certain sort of regard for 
29 


beautiful things, but only, in so far as they gratified his 
own pleasures. 

•h 

There was no woman so miserable as I was when I 
lost Otho. 

Here was folly ! Otho had a hope that he might serve 
me, for he loved me better than his life, by patting the 
back of the hellish longing that the King had for me. 
Otho loved me so dearly he could not let me die: he 
thought to make me happy by a throne. 

Tenderly do I remember his very words: — '"Pet of 
me! Thou shall he Queen, and I will go away and die , — 
out of the roadP 

There was a glow of hope in him when he said those 
words : he hoped that Nero would be tender and helpful 
to me, and gratify my love of displaying my charms. 

Then came those days when the smiles of the miserable 
Poppsea gladdened the heart of Rome. 

Then came the days when I, white-robed, adorned by 
nothing but my golden hair, stood in my ivory chariot, 
my milk-white mules slowly and softly pacing through 
the streets. Then, when they heard the silver bells, the 
men and women formed in lines, awaiting me, and say- 
ing to each Other: — "Here comes our PoppceaH* Oft 
would some man prostrate himself, prone in the track, 
willing to make my car a Juggernaut. Then would the 
docile beasts, obedient to my voice, stand still until the 
man arose and kissed my sandalled feet, as many others 
30 


did, both men and women, crowding round, at every 
gentle stoppage of the car. 

I was, indeed, a Queen ; — Queen of the people’s heart. 

4 - 

Then came the end : — end of Poppaea : — end of it all ! 

4 * 

Oh ! the hate, the hatred of a woman. Oh ! the burn- 
ing splendour of my hatred ! I am a Power now. Shame 
is no mantle of mine now ! Blamed am I by none of my 
companions ; but still I cherish, in all its blazing fury, the 
hate with which I hate that man and all his hellish crew. 
In hell they are, and further hell is yet in store for them, 
if only for the pranks they played Poppaea. Their stones 
may still roll on through many future centuries, but how 
long will it be before they are appointed to the love of 
Poppaea Sabina and so be lifted out of hell ? 

Never ! The man who, on Earth, is hated by a woman, 
and with Justice hated, can never rise again. 

Nero, the tyrant, hated me : he hated me more than he 
had hated his mother, and that was much. So here, he 
had the power to do me the pain of shattering my hopes, 
for he shaped a plan to spoil my beauty : not the beauty 
that he loved, after his vulgar fashion; but the beauty 
of my spotless reputation, which he hated as the devils 
hate angels. 

He plotted with a female accomplice to force me into 
the arms of a slave of his, and that she should be the wit- 


31 


ness of what the world would call my crime, so that I 
might be held up to the scorn of Rome. 

I countered the devilish scheme by plotting the slave 
into the arms of a courtesan, a favourite of Nero's. He 
was killed by the courtesan. 

Then said the King: — '‘How is it that he came to 
theef Then she said : — “Thou sent him to Poppcea and 
she sent him to me.’' 

And then he came and kicked me till I died. 

Dead, they scorned me: they took my body, the body 
of a noble Roman lady ; they did not burn it ; they buried 
it in the earth, in the dead embrace of the slave! 

Better was I dead, in the arms of that murdered slave, 
than alive, in the arms of Nero. 


CHAPTER II. 

I have already described the manner of my death and 
my ignominious interment. Then, as a ghost or disem- 
bodied Soul I wandered on the earth with Otho till he 
fell. 

What went with Otho after death 'tis not for me to 
tell : there are certain laws amongst Ghosts which forbid 
relation of each other’s stories. 

4 * 

The Sea became my next condition, and here, at first, 
I was not happy — I found it all so strange: and yet I 
had no misery, nor pain. 


32 


I had Power, though, in that sea life, because, although 
I was a Ghost, all Sea Creatures of the great Mam- 
malian class, as well as human disembodied Souls, were 
able to perceive and to admire my beauty. I was there- 
fore worshipped by the Sea Creatures, for they do love 
beauty, although they are not men. 

Well! It ended in a longing desire to join them, and 
Nature, whom Roman Cicero truly termed “the Mother 
of all Creatures,” soon pointed out the way. I entered 
the body of a female infant seal, even as at birth I had 
previously entered the body of an infant human female. 

Strange that I cannot remember my life before I be- 
came a woman child: and yet I can so clearly recollect 
my life before I was a Seal. 

No human being, not even those they call ‘‘just men 
made perfect” ; none but jw&human or jw/>^rhuman beings 
in the Majestic underNorXd and over^orld of nature, 
could conceive the glory of my life in this, my new con- 
dition. I was a beautiful Seal, and I did have glory. 
The males fought for me, and often to the death. I al- 
ways chose the seal who conquered. It is the law 
of seals. 

Thus lived I, many centuries, in the body of Seal after 
Seal, dying a natural death as one old seal and becoming 
another young seal ; and so I saw and became fully ac- 
quainted with all the Ocean life. 

An unfortunate visit to the Caves of Shetland at the 
usual breeding season caused my unnatural death; for 
before, I had rejoiced in living and rearing my young in 

33 


those parts of the ocean never visited by men who live by 
the slaughter of seals. 

We were thus sojourning in the Shetland Caves and 
all went happily with our party until the wrongdoers of 
Nature, called Men, came to their annual slaughter and 
killed my Mate, my Cubs, me also. Many of the males, 
as was usual, escaped, overturning some of the boats 
and putting out some of the torches; but most of our 
females and all our cubs fell under the clubs of the 
‘"Murdering Shetlanders.” This time I died of a blow on 
the nose from a club ; and so, again, I came, after an inter- 
regnum, under the dominion of Man, because, being 
killed by man as a Wild Mammalian, enabled my Soul, 
which no man can kill, to enter the body of a terrestrial 
mammalian subservient to Man, as soon as I felt in- 
clined. 

I may state, for the information of readers unac- 
quainted with natural history, that Mammalians are ani- 
mals of the land and sea who, when young, are fed on 
milk which they suck from the teat of a mother. There 
are some who cannot live long under water; these are 
called terrestrials : — there are some who are at home un- 
der water, such as Dolphins, Porpoises and Whales ; these 
are called aquatic : — and there are some who can enjoy 
life both on land and water, being provided with organs 
of sense infinitely more perfect and delicate than those of 
men, and suited to both elements; such as Walrus, Sea 
Lions, Manatees and Seals : — these are called am- 
phibious. 


34 


I may also add that it is a law of Nature that the soul 
of any Wild Mammal, whether of the Earth or Sea, after 
meeting with death at the hands of man, has the privilege, 
if once human, of at once entering the body of one of the 
domestic animals of Man and becoming its owner. By 
the domestic animals I mean Cats, Dogs, Sheep, Goats, 
Horses, Asses, Camels, &c., &c. 


CHAPTER 12. 

Let it not be forgotten that this tale that I am telling, 
as briefly as I can, is not that of an embodied or of a dis- 
embodied Soul, but the continuous autobiography of a 
Ghost or Soul, whether embodied or not. I have said 
very little, so far, about my recollections when not the 
owner of a flesh and blood body of my own, because, dur- 
ing such periods, I only had to do with the perceptions : 
whereas an embodied Soul, whose body calls its Soul its 
own, has to do with the Senses and may therefore talk 
of matters intelligible to man's senses. 

Thus have I now related all I mean to tell at present, 
about my life as the Soul of a Woman and as the Soul 
of a Seal. 

Released from the pleasant prisons of the sea, in which 
I had voluntarily incarcerated myself many centuries 
ago, I was now at liberty to walk the earth, a disem- 
bodied Ghost, and do as much mischief, or give man as 
much help, through his perceptions, as I felt inclined. 

35 


I confess that, after my second murder, I felt as general 
a hatred to the tyrant Man as I had specially felt, after 
my first murder, for the tyrant Nero; because it does not 
tend to develop benevolence in the Soul of a Seal to be 
deprived of ''all her pretty ones at one fell swoop” She 
feels it keenly, as every human Mother can clearly un- 
derstand. 

If, therefore, for a century or so, I did some mischief 
on the earth, by prompting men through their percep- 
tions to evil thoughts and acts and deeds : if, in short, 
I “played the devil” for a time, I was not without a reas- 
onable excuse. If man had left the seals alone he would 
have left me alone, and I should perhaps be, even now, 
locked up in those flesh and blood prisons of the sea from 
which I, very certainly, had no desire to be liberated. 

Mischief, however, or playing the devil, without a body 
of one’s own to play it in, becomes, at last, monotonous. 
By Natural Law I was prevented from becoming the Soul 
of a new-born female human infant and bringing my vast 
experience of the Subhuman world to bear against the 
tyrant Man. I was also blocked by Natural Law from 
recommencing my Earth Career of Sense in the body of 
any Wild Animal. To become a Tigress, or better still, a 
She Wolf, would have suited my frame of mind. 

Woman, if foiled in her desire, very often does the exact 
opposite of what she at first desired to do. I could not 
re-incarnate as a Boadicea or a Zenobia. I could not be- 
come a Were Wolf or a Loup-garou. I wearied of Hate 
and longed for Love. I abandoned the idea of Blood for 
36 


Blood. I determined to become the Soul of some beau- 
tiful female animal, loved and petted by man, and nursed 
in the lap of luxury. I determined to this course one day 
as I was wandering through the streets of Paris and saw 
a man, sitting in a carriage with a lovely dog of the species 
Loo-loo, proudly cushioned at his side. She was sitting 
upright as a lady, evidently enjoying her drive and the 
society of her master, with whom she appeared to be upon 
the most intimate and affectionate terms. This incident 
decided me and completely turned the current of my life. 
I decided to become a Loo-loo and win the affection of 
a man. 


CHAPTER 13. 

Conversing on my plans with other disembodied souls 
in my own condition of being, I soon discovered that in a 
little village called Tercy, away down in Normandy, 
there lived an Englishman named Harry Beaufort, cele- 
brated in those parts for having brought the breed of Loo- 
loos, or “Little Wolves,” to great perfection. 

Down into Normandy then, went I at once, and hov- 
ered round his kennels. The shape and appearance of 
the dogs suited my fastidious taste exactly, and I selected 
a very beautiful one, shortly to give birth to a litter, to 
be my future mother. My future father, too, was a very 
handsome dog, and both were white as snow. The diffi- 
culty, however, was how to choose a future master. This 
difficulty I soon was able to surmount. 

37 


The disposal of the pups was always settled a long 
time in advance, and I found that Beaufort had promised 
to a young Englishman the choice of the females of this 
particular litter. Having sought him out and found 
that he was unburdened by any other pets, women or 
dogs, and that he would suit excellently for a master, I 
depended on my power as a Ghost to influence him, 
through his perceptive faculties, to choose one particular 
dog. 

Awaiting human souls, however, must either become 
the souls of dogs directly they are born, or have a proxy : 
so I arranged with another Ghost to take my place at 
first, until I had persuaded my future master in his 
choice. Thus, the friendly Ghosts around the kennels 
helped my plans, and all turned out as I desired. 

As a Seal, I bore no name familiar to ears of men, but 
having chosen me, my master had to find a name for me, 
once more a female Earth Mammalian. I was left with 
my mother for the usual time, and then he came to fetch 
me. As a dog I could not whisper to him my desire that 
he should call me “Poppy.'' However, he did better. 
He took me home and said to me: “My pet! You are 
a little beauty, and I shall call you 'Venus/ ” 

What could I do but wag my tail in my intense satis- 
faction and delight ? I did more. I threw my little paws 
around his neck and kissed him on the lips. 


38 


CHAPTER 14. 


The preceding chapter records my birth and baptism 
as the Dog “Venus.” 

These events occurred in the year 1857. My master 
was then a young man of eighteen years of age. With 
him I had, alas ! only a very short life ; but it was a very 
bright and merry one. I was his constant companion. 
At table I always occupied a chair at his right hand. 
When the weather was dry and clean I sported at his 
side ; in cold or muddy weather he had a large and spe- 
cial pocket always ready for me, in which I snugly 
nestled. I took my meals alone, before he began his own ; 
but choice morsels from his plate were always given me 
as I sat by his side at breakfast or at dinner. No ball 
or party ever attended he at any house where “Venus” 
was not welcome ; but, when the people came to know me, 
I was always the '‘hien venu” I soon became well known 
and even celebrated, as “the properest dog in France,” 
among the circle of my master. “Mam'selle Venus'' be- 
came at last, an ornament they could not do with- 
out. 

I always took my daily bath alone, like any other lady, 
but my master had the privilege to rub my white skin 
dry. At the foot of his bed I always slept, and woke him 
every morning with a kiss. 

Once, to win a bet for him, I swam the river Orne. 
One of his companions held me while he went over in a 
boat; and, having landed, called to me to come. This 

39 


was deemed a great performance, because 1 was not of 
a breed who willingly take the water. 

Another time, when his companions teased him about 
his lonely life, and wondered why he did not take a mis- 
tress, as all young Frenchmen do ; he said there were no 
women in France devoted as his dog, and when they 
questioned this, he put it to the proof, because he locked 
me in his room and took them all downstairs, leaving 
the window open, at which I stood, my paws upon the 
sill, looking alertly down into the street, three floors 
below me. Then four of them held a blanket and he 
called to me to come. I did not want a second calling. 
I would, at call, have jumped, blanket or no blanket. 
And then he petted me and kissed me for my bravery, 
and all expressed their wonder at so great devotion in a 
dog. 

It was a strange, a pure, and very holy life, the life I 
led ; that young man’s constant and adoring mate — ador- 
ing and adored. All other dogs had dog companions 
and dog affections. I, in all my life, had none. I never 
even learned the language or spoke to any other dog. I 
have been mother to one human infant — and mother 
to many seals, but I never was a lover or a mother to a 
dog. Here stood I alone and singular among the dogs 
of Earth. Yes, that life of mine, as the Soul of a Dog, 
was a strange, a pure, a holy, and a glorious life. No 
animal could have been happier. 

I loved him better than any woman could have been 
capable of loving him ; that gentle, tender, loving master. 

40 


In the year 1859 he took me with him across the Chan- 
nel to his native island; but it was a sore, sore day for 
me when he went away, far away, across the deep seas, 
leaving me behind, after trying by every means in my 
dumb power to make him understand that I was his love 
above all loves, and that if he left me I should die. I 
know it almost tore his heart out to be parted from his 
dog, but he thought, and used to tell me so, as he caress 
me on his knee, that I would be safer and happier with 
his sister than in the wild, rough country to which his 
duty led him. 

Well! he sailed! His sister tried to comfort me in 
vain. I lived for some time, but at last, in my sorrow, I 
said: will eat no more/' and I went and hid myself 

beneath the hollow bank of a dry ditch, and there, bye 
and bye, I died. 

Some months afterwards, they found my skin and my 
bones and my little collar round my neck, with my 
master’s name upon it. 

I have had pain in my life, but the fiercest glow of 
pain I ever felt, I felt the day my master left me. 

But there was joy in store for me. I now became a 
Ghost again, and so I followed him across the ocean. I 
searched the planet till I found him, and then I stuck to 
him. Even now, after all these years, he has only to 
think of his little Dog to bring me to his side. 

Three and twenty years after my death in the ditch 
my master revisited his native land. His mother, who 
had carefully preserved my collar, gave it to him, telling 

41 


my sad story. I, a Ghost, was present at the time. He 
took it and declared it would always be his most precious 
earthly treasure. He bared his right arm and put it on, 
and ”by the Splendour of the living God” he swore that 
he had never met a woman worthy to wear it as a brace- 
let, and when he died he would be buried, if he had his 
way, with his dog’s collar on his arm. 

Yes 1 1 , Poppsea, heard him say those words ! 

I have had pride, and I have had some glory in my 
time, but never had I such a triumph, even in my ivory 
car, as I enjoyed that day among the Ghosts who 
clustered round the dead dog’s collar, as it glittered on 
my master’s bare right arm. The band of Belit! The 
band of the bond of the great Mammalian mother to all 
her creatures, human, subhuman, or divine! Glory of 
the glow of the love of a man for a dog! Glory of the 
glow of the love of a dog for a man ! 

My old master is not yet dead, and that is one reason 
why I must not write his name in this, my history. It 
is now the year 1903 of the Christian Era, and I am 
only one of many Ghosts who wishes he were dead. 
Oh ! how I long to be his dog again, and once more wear 
my own, own collar, for I am now a Ghost, in such a 
state of being that I can be a Woman, Seal or Dog, or 
any other creature, at a thought, and live a life more real 
than reality. 

And so shall he be also, after he is dead, and that is 
why we Ghosts, who love him, do desire his death. 


42 


CHAPTER IS. 


As a ci-devant Woman, Seal, and Dog, and from ex- 
perience gained in those conditions of being, also from 
a far wider experience gained as a disembodied Soul, I 
solemnly and sincerely declare, that there is no Devil nor 
power of Evil capable of so much mischief on the whole 
face of Nature as a Man. I also solemnly and sincerely 
declare, that there is no Angel nor subordinate power of 
Good capable of being a great helper to every creature 
of Nature as a good, square, honest, earnest, gentle, lov- 
ing. Man. 

As a Woman, I had to do with such a man in Otho, 
who was my loving servant; and as a Dog, I had to do 
with such a man in the man who was my loving master. 

By this help have I progressed into a state of being be- 
yond which no human Soul can pass without ceasing to 
be human, and without giving up the hope of inheriting 
the Earth as a Paradise for human life Eternal. 

There may be, indeed, I know there are, many per- 
fectionists, desiring further and further onward progress, 
until they sink like dew-drops into the shining sea of in- 
comprehensible divinity. 

Poppsea is not one of these, neither are the vast ma- 
jority of human ghosts who share her hopes to be en- 
abled, after patient, weary waiting, to come down Old 
Jacob’s promised ladder. 

Meanwhile, and to advance that time, or do my best 
toward it, the history of my life being ended, I will direct 

43 


the pen at my command, as spokeswoman for Seals and 
Dogs, and other Mammals. 

I must, however, first explain that there are two great 
and distinct divisions of human Souls. 

First, there are many on earth, and many, many more 
in those various states of being which men of Earth call 
Heaven, whose sole desire and ambition is the help of 
Mankind; whose true and earnest love and sympathy 
extends no further than the human race. These have 
that strong and powerful help to bring their hopes about 
which the wide extent of their true sympathy commands. 

The other division may be smaller in number, but is 
far more mighty in power and influence; and to that 
other division I belong, also the dead man who was my 
servant, and the live man who was my master. We are 
all bonded and banded with the bands of the bonds — the 
‘‘Beautiful Bands” — of the great Mammalian Mother, to 
love and help every creature ever capable of sucking a 
mother’s teat, and who has not incurred the hatred and 
contempt of Women or Dogs, for thus says the “Living 
Word” (the Zend-Avesta in the Vendidad) : — 

'‘Who kicks a dog-hitch in the belly shall die/* 

We have the aid, not only of all the powers and 
thoughts whose office is to pour the help of God upon the 
Mammal Man, but of those Majestic Angels who pour 
His help on every Mammal, from a Man to a Mouse 
and from a Rat to a Rhinoceros, on Whales, on Por- 
poises, and Seals; in fact, on “every creature.” Our 
honest, truthful sympathy does not extend to "every 
44 


creature/^ but it does extend to every creature horn to 
suck a M other* s teat; and thus our power and influence 
is mighty and majestic, beyond all count and all descrip- 
tion. 


CHAPTER i6. 

It was upon the thirtieth of June, in the year 1903 of 
the Christian Era, that I read the newspaper paragraph 
about Women which I quoted in my second chapter. 
On the same day I read another paragraph about Whales, 
which I now quote: 

'‘So many American whalers are going to seek the big 
fish in the Baffin Bay waters this season that the Canadian 
Government has decided to charter a sealing steamer to 
cruise there to prevent the Yankee from ‘violating Cana- 
dian Customs law.* 

“Years of more or less desultory whaling have given 
the sea giants a chance to recuperate ; and that they were 
not guilty of race suicide during their time of rest is 
proved by the fact that whales are plentiful in all the 
seas again. 

“Whaling, one of the oldest forms of big game hunt- 
ing known, is the one field which has not been fittingly 
exploited by the amateur sportsman. In a time when 
lion-hunting and tiger-shooting are mere routine sport- 
ing affairs to hundreds of wealthy men, the zvhale should 
appeal with great force.** 

Well, then, let the Whale appeal with all the force at 
45 


present at the Whale’s command, not very great, but 
great enough to make some square and honest men, if 
gentle, kind, and loving also, cry shame on such a heart- 
less cruel paragraph. 


CHAPTER 17. 

Let me at this stage give a general view of Mam- 
malia, including only those who are most familiar to 
'man. We will take them in the order assigned to them 
by the French Naturalist Cuvier: 

''Two-Handed” The human race. 

"Four-Handed.” Apes, Babboons, Monkeys. 

"Flesh Eaters ” Bats, Hedgehogs, Moles, Bears, 
Raccoons, Coatimondis, Kinkajous, Pandars, Wolver- 
ines, Weasels, Martins, Skunks, Otters, Dogs, Wolves, 
Jackals, Foxes, Civets, Musangs, Ichneumons, Mungoos, 
Hyenas, Cats, Lions, Leopards, Tigers, Jaguars, Pan- 
thers, Ounces, Lynx, Wildcats, Seals and Walrus. 

"Pouched.” Opossums, Bandicoots, Flying Squirrels, 
Kangaroo Rats, Kangaroos, Wallaby, Wombat. 

"Gnawers.” Squirrels, Rats, Aye Ayes, Prairie Dogs, 
Dormice, Mice, Mole-rats, Guinea-pigs, Hares, Beavers, 
Porcupines, Rabbits. 

"Toothless.” Sloths, Armadillos, Ground-hogs, Ant 
Eaters, Duck-billed Platipus. 

"Thick-Skinned.” Elephants, Mastadons, Hippopot- 
ami, Pigs, Boars, Hogs, Rhinoceros, Damans, Palde- 
otherium, Tapirs, Horses, Asses, Zebras. 

46 


”Cud Chewers” Camels, Dromedaries, Lamas, 
Musks, Elks, Reindeer, Fallow Deer, Red Deer, Roe, 
Giraffe, Antelope, Nylghau, Chamois, Gnu, Goat, Ibex, 
Sheep, Oxen, Bison and Buffalo. 

''Fish-like Form” Manatees, Dugongs, Dolphins, 
Porpoises, Narwhals, Cachelots and Whales. 


CHAPTER i8. 

Shame on men who kill any teat-sucking animal! 
They are killing creatures that contain the souls of men 
and women I Men, too, who have sucked milk from the 
breast of a mother, and have had the opportunity to suck 
the strong drink of Wisdom from the breast of Truth! 
Shame on such men! 

It is not the pen of Poppsea Sabina, but the pen of 
God which has written: “Go ye out unto all the 

EARTH AND TELL THE GOOD TIDINGS TO EVERY CREATURE.” 

There is not one creature that giveth suck or receiveth 
it that is not a man or woman in some state of develop- 
ment or another. There is not one creature in that vast 
domain that is not a brother or a sister to man. 

It is for man to teach all these creatures the Law of 
God, not to kill each other. The rule, even now, of a 
very large majority of these creatures is, to eat of a class 
below them in development. Few eat of their own class. 
Mammalia. It is for man to teach those few to eat of 
the kingdoms and classes below them. 

47 


Yes ! It is for Man to teach them, but by “Man” I 
mean the Ghosts of the mountain of dead men and the 
Ghosts of the ocean of dead women; not the diminutive 
mole-hill of the living men on Earth. 

Gladly and gleefully will we teach them; but the living 
men on earth must first be taught, neither to kill each 
other nor any other animal who sucks a mother^ s teat. 
Then shall the Lion lie down with the Lamb and Com- 
plete Content shall reign. 


CHAPTER 19. 

Wonder! Ye men of the Earth, to hear the Soul of a 
Seal speak! Me! Poppaea! The Soul of a Seal! A 
female Seal for many centuries. 

I return to the condition of a Sea Woman to make this 
chapter really and truly the Voice of a Seal. 

The thought that the Soul of a Seal conveys will apply 
to the thought of all the Sea Mammals, who once were 
men and women. 

We are in the simple condition of separate Souls 
of men and women in separate bodies of flesh and 
blood. 

We are all in bodies of sea teat-sucking animals. 

There are no animals in the Sea who suck the teat that 
are not Soul holders of men and women who once walked 
the Earth, and who, by outraging natural law, have had 
to descend to the condition of sea men and women. 
Thus did I, Poppsea Sabina, outrage natural laws by al- 

48 


lowing myself to become the wife of Nero, a man I heid 
in great repugnance. 

Becoming weary of a spiritual condition as disem- 
bodied Souls, we have, on every opportunity, taken flesh 
in the bodies of sea animals; so there are now, in the 
sea, no animals who suck the teat that are not men and 
women of earth, in real earnest, but in another animal 
form. 

We are The Lords and Rulers of the Sea, even as Men 
are The Lords and Rulers of the Earth. 

We demand that remembrance of us be in the hearts of 
all men : that they leave us alone, and that they kill us 
or injure us no more. 

We are harmless creatures. We have no desire to hurt 
any man, although he fell into the Sea, we would not 
hurt him. 

We be Sea Lions, Hood-caps, Sea Bears, Sea Wolves, 
Bearded Seals, Moelrhons, Harp Seals, Rough Seals, 
Little Seals, Urigne Seals, Pied Seals, Monk Seals, 
Long-necked Seals, Fur Seals, Tortoise-headed Seals, 
Ribbed Seals, Leporine Seals, Porcine Seals, Yel- 
low Seals, Chili Seals, Marbled Seals, Small-nailed 
Seals, Sea Leopards, Halkets, Stinking Seals, New- 
foundland Seals, and other creatures of that genera. 

We be Morsks or Walruses and other creatures of 
that genera. 

We be Manatees or Woman Fishes, Dugongs or Little 
Bearded Men, Whale-tailed Manatees, Senegal Mana- 
tees, Round-tailed Manatees, Sea Apes or Sirens, Sea 
49 


Cows, Indian Walruses, Halicore Dugongs, Red Sea 
Dugongs, Northern Dugongs, and other creatures of 
that family. 

We be Black Whales, Iceland Whales, Razorbacks, 
Beaked Whales, Unicorn Fish, Small-headed Narwhals, 
Greenland Anarnaks, Great Spermaceti Whales, Blunt- 
headed Cachelots, Small-eyed Cachelots, Porpoises, Dol- 
phins, Grampuses, Caa’ing Whales, Gladiator Dolphins, 
Butskopfs, White Whales, Soo-soos, Inias and other 
creatures of that family. 

Such be we! Mammalians, all! 

I have now made man aware of the only creatures of 
the Sea to whom he does any real injury. I declare that, 
after this has been made known to the men of the Earth, 
if they still persist in killing us, we will kill them and 
eat them, whenever they appear near us, and we happen 
to be more powerful, or in greater force, than they are. 

Hitherto, we have quietly submitted to death at Man’s 
hand, because we dreaded to commit further outrages up- 
on the laws of Nature, for which outrages our present 
position is the penalty. Further outrages would have 
carried us further down, below the scale of noble animals 
into the ranks of those from whom we could never arise 
again as men and women. 

So, take notice ! Men of the earth ! We are now, by 
authority, permitted to kill you, if you attempt to kill 
us. We intend to take advantage of that authority, 
so 


Some of you, who pursue the trad'e of killing seals, 
whales and other sea mammals, will be reminded 
strongly of this caution the next time you attempt any 
of your old habits of slaughter. 

There be caves and there be islands into which men 
enter, and upon which men land at periodic intervals, to 
slaughter us. Remember, ye Men! Whoso enters a 
cave to kill a seal, shall never see the light of day again. 
And let that be a lesson to all who kill any of the other 
sea creatures who have sucked a mother’s teat. 

When you see ship after ship sail in pursuit of whales 
and never return: — when you see ship after ship sail 
in pursuit of whales or seals, or any others of our class, 
and return with the loss of many of their crew: — then, 
reperuse my words, and compare them with the facts at 
your command. 

If such experience will be sufficient to satisfy you that 
you had better leave us alone, you may believe or disbe- 
lieve, at option, all that I have said about our identity with 
your race: and the Seals, Morsks and Cetacea generally 
will be also satisfied. 

Send us a pen ! This has been our cry for centuries. 

For centuries we have been promised the help that we 
demanded, provided we could get a pen to tell the men 
of earth our dominion of the sea. 

We have, at last, secured a pen; we have complied 
with the conditions ; and we now demand of men to take 
particular notice of all the men who shall attempt to kill 

51 


seals and whales for the future, and when they find 
that the seals and whales kill the men that attack them, 
let all the men of the earth believe our story and refrain 
from any further pursuit of us or violence to us. 

We can offer no further proof than the assurance that, 
for the future, we sea creatures will be allowed to defend 
ourselves from the attacks of men. 


Now that we are allowed to retaliate we hope to be 
able to demonstrate the dangers men incur in attacking 
us. We hope, by being left in peace, that we may be able 
to go on in our present condition until we attain sufficient 
perfection to pass naturally on into a higher one. 

We have avoided this attempt before, in consequence 
of the known dangers to ns from the violence of man 
being greater on earth than in the sea; but now that we 
are aware of the new law specially made for the benefit of 
all the creatures below mankind, we are not afraid to 
enter the body of an earth mammal after death, and so 
progress towards perfection. 

We therefore declare that we do determine to die 
natural deaths in the sea, and no longer crowd together 
in companies in order to be killed by man ; which, under 
the old law, was our only release from our condition 
as sea creatures. 

Can men, in their stupid ignorance, imagine that a Seal 
or a Whale would quietly submit itself to be clubbed or 

52 


speared, unless it had a special object in submitting to 
the violence of man? 

That object has now ceased, so men may beware of 
OUR violence if they dare, any more, to approach us. 


CHAPTER 20. 

There is a legend of a Wolf that eats men and appears 
in the form of a Beautiful Woman, and sometimes as a 
Man. It has been called Were Wolf or Loup-garou, and 
by other names. 

This legend, like most folk-lore, has a substrata of 
fact. Facts may be, either past, present or to come. The 
facts upon which this legend rests are all to come. 
They have not happened, but they will happen. 

The legends of the Were Wolf have arisen from the 
odour of a terrible thought, the thought of the domestic 
mammalia now under man’s dominion writhing; emas- 
culated ; slaughtered ; tortured ; yet his willing and obedi- 
ent slaves. 

The odour of this thought, reaching the intellects of 
men, has presented itself in a distorted form, the form 
of the Were Wolf. 

The real thought is this : 

Tame, gentle and highly tractable creatures under the 
dominion of man, suddenly shall become savage, fero- 
cious as wolves; and, in vast herds, devour the men who 
have dominion over them. 


53 


Isolated and occasional cases of Camels, and other 
creatures remarkable for patience and gentleness, occur 
from time to time, in which they suddenly become man’s 
enemy and tear their tormentors to pieces in the most 
furious manner. 

These are the little dark clouds in the sky, which, to the 
weather-wise, foretell tempest, but which are disregarded 
by the ignorant and foolish. 

Prophecy is to be found in other corners than in the 
books of holy writ. Men may hear it in the fairy tale 
of the poet, the fable of the philosopher, the tittle tattle 
of women, the prattle of babes, or the shrieks of the 
enraged and overloaded camel. 

Coming events cast their shadows before, and, even as 
out of the mouths of babes and sucklings cometh forth 
Wisdom, so, out of the mouth of a Dead Dog may living 
waters flow, 


THE END. 


54 














MAY 9 1904 



ubrarv of congress ^ 

Q002231^b44 


